Grey Cards

[graemelee]

Just need to know if $22 is too much for grey,black.white card set.Im looking at the small dredit card style MicNova brand? Yjey are 5.5cm x 8.5cm so just wondering if these are any good.

[ricktas]

How much are you going to use them? Anything at any price is over-priced if you use it once and not again, but then if you use it every time you go out, it can be good value at 5x the price you are stating.

The only thing I use is a microfibre lens cleaning cloth that is 18% grey (mid grey), so it gets used as a cleaner, as well as a grey card.

[graemelee]

Thanks Rick.Good point

[TOM]

usually for caucasians, metering off the back of your hand and adjusting one stop is pretty close - it's easy to test and use a different value if required. That way you should always have a "grey card" with you. It is not always conveniet (ie you want to leave the card in scene that is further away from your camera than the length of your arm), but does the trick most of the time.

[mongo]

Mongo agrees with Rick and Tom.

Mrs Mongo meters off the palm of her hand with great accuracy (or even normal green grass which is in the same light as the subject)

[Papou]

Do the same as Riktas , Mong & Tom. Otherwise green lawn will also suffice..

[achee]

Hmmm... are we talking about metering for exposure or white balance (or both)? I understand using your hand or grass for exposure metering, but I'd think they'd be pretty useless for white balance... ?

[ricktas]

Hmmm... are we talking about metering for exposure or white balance (or both)? I understand using your hand or grass for exposure metering, but I'd think they'd be pretty useless for white balance... ?

No we are talking about white balance. You can use a white sheet of A4 paper if you wish. It is about getting the camera to assess the scene and know what 'it is seeing', it is about what would look 18% grey, in a mono photo, which the back of your hand or grass does.

[KeeFy]

If you shoot in raw you can adjust the WB pretty easily but not for exposure even in raw. Raw is definitely more forgiving than jpg but best to get the exposure right the first time round.

[William]

IMHO I reckon you can get at least 1.5 to 2 stops (MAX) Exposure Adjustment in PP shooting RAW , White balance is easy fixable 1 stop easy , White balance just use the eye dropper tool (In Lightroom) To set the white balance on a neutral colour

Just a quick Google backs my thoughts on RAW processing : http://www.lonestardigital.com/shooting_raw.htm

[doc]

I love the microfibre lens cleaning cloth idea. If you are going to have a cloth in your kit you might as well have a grey one.
Doc.

[pellicle]

of limited utility. Exposure determination is best done by capture and review (hey you use digital right?)

Grey cards can be handy for professional work where you can set one in the scene (where you will crop out or taking a test shot) and used for determining colour balance in post processing (say you're using lightroom and RAW). White is problematic as it can end up clipped making it difficult to use for proper white balance. Of course a white sheet (make sure it is WHITE) can be used to set camera WB and that metadata can be used in post too.